Saturday, 18 August 2012

The drearily cold winter appears to have taken its toll on Greg Hunt, Australia´s Shadow Minister for Climate Change:

Australia's opposition Liberal party climate spokesman Greg Hunt on Thursday gave his "in principle" backing to signing up for a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol, making it easier for the under-fire government to sign the U.N. climate treaty.a

Hunt told The Age newspaper that the opposition coalition's intention is to join a new Kyoto period, although a final decision would depend on the exact terms.

"What the world really needs is to bring China and India hand Indonesia on board, to bring Russia and Brazil on board. I think it will be easier to strike a 2016 agreement to commence in 2020, if there is a Kyoto 2," Hunt said, according to The Age.

If Australia signs up to a new target under Kyoto, it will become the first non-European developed nation to do so.

The party seems to be over for China. Official statistics still indicate growth, but China expert Gordon Chang is convinced that Chinese officials are artificially inflating statistics:

The conclusion that China’s economy is probably shrinking is confirmed by manufacturing surveys and prices indexes, but the most telling indicators are the mountains of unneeded commodities. Copper in recent months has been stockpiled in parking lots, and iron ore has been stored in granaries. Ships loaded with unwanted coal have been waiting off Chinese ports. That’s why China analysts are talking about the “heart attack” economy, and Anne Stevenson-Yang of J Capital Research uses the phrase “rigor mortis.”-After 35 years of virtually uninterrupted growth, China has hit an inflection point. The three primary reasons that created more than three decades of growth either no longer exist or are disappearing fast. The country is no longer reforming, the international environment is not benign, and the “demographic dividend”—an extraordinary bulge in the workforce—is turning into a demographic bust.-

Now, with declining markets abroad, China cannot earn big profits from sales to foreign customers. Without the export cushion, the transition to a consumption-led economy in China will cause dislocations that are considered politically unacceptable.

The Chinese economy is now in a new supercycle. This time, the direction of the cycle, which could last decades, is down. Yes, China has passed its peak and is unable to implement necessary reforms.

The downward spiral in China is not necessarily a bad thing for the US:

Smaller American manufacturers, for instance, will undoubtedly be helped as they will face less competition from their Chinese counterparts. The return of manufacturing to America will accelerate.

So we don’t have to be overly concerned about China’s coming failure. The truth is that America depends on China much less than China depends on the United States. Take China’s trade surplus in goods. Last year, China’s surplus against the U.S. amounted to $295.4 billion. China’s overall goods surplus was $155.1 billion. That means its surplus against us was an unimaginable 190.5% of its overall trade surplus. China, in short, has an economy geared to selling things to the United States.

And, incredibly, China’s dependence on the United States is increasing at this moment. In the first seven months of this year, Chinese exports to Europe fell 3.6% over the same period last year. How about China’s exports to America? They jumped 11.4%.

The United States, on the other hand, does not have an economy geared to China. Trade for the United States—and especially its trade with China—is a negative for its gross domestic product. This is not to say that trade does not, in the larger picture, benefit America. It certainly does. But it is to say American economic success does not depend on China’s.

And, contrary to a general belief, the U.S. would be better off without Beijing funding its federal deficits. Our problem has been too many international and domestic investors wanting to lend to Washington, not too few.

So when China’s economy collapses, Americans will realize they have less stake in the Chinese miracle than they have been led to believe.

What the negative development in China means for Europe is difficult to tell. However, for many German manufacturers, which during the last few years have profited from exports to China, it must be very worrying.

The approval ratings of Russian president Vladimir Putin have fallen to a new low of just 48 percent since elected in March, independent pollsters at the Levada Center said Friday.

A total of 25 percent said they were unhappy twith Putin, up from 21 percent in May. His approval dropped below 50 percent at the same time.

The results show a major fall in Putin’s approval rating since his first two terms as president, when it averaged 65 percent. Only 15 percent disapproved of Putin. His popularity peaked at the end of 2008 when it reached 80 percent, with just 10 percent against.

Most of the animosity is due to lackluster reforms in political structure, and a perceived clamp down on civil rights.

Friday, 17 August 2012

"In a rather practical design feature, each of this electric maintenance vehicles is also equipped with a roof-mounted solar panel"(image by US Navy)

Meet the U.S. Navy´s awesome new weapon, the SMV (SlowMoving Vehicle) made in China (chassis)! With a range of 40 miles and maximum speed of 25 mph the SMV is according to U.S. Navy Captain John Coronado "perfect for commuting in and around JBPHH, transporting people, tools, and supplies to keep our fleet ready”:

“These SMVs offer a safer and smarter alternative to the smaller, outdated neighborhood electric vehicles that have been in use for the past 10 years,” said Capt. John Coronado, NAVFAC Hawaii commanding officer. “A range of 40 miles and maximum speed of 25 mph make them perfect forcommuting in and around JBPHH, transporting people, tools, and supplies to keep our fleet ready.”

The models, manufactured by Vantage Vehicle International, Inc., include two- and four-passenger trucks and cargo vans and have virtually the same capability as full-size automobiles. They also have hard doors, windshield wipers, air conditioning/heat, radio, and instrument gauges, which other SMVs do not. Vantage SMVs use conventional 110-volt charging cables; however, each one is also equipped with a roof-mounted solar panel to reduce time and resources at the charging station, while extending battery life and usage.

Distribution of the new vehicles will first be to commands that already have SMVs and power stations in place. NAVFAC Hawaii plans to purchase more vehicles in the future to keep up with the President’s fossil fuel reduction mandate.

Read the entire US Navy press release hereWe are all waiting for the next step. Maybe a solar powered aircraft carrier?

PSCapt. Coronado forgot to mention perhaps the most useful feature of the new SMV: It is ideal for noiseless transportation to and from the Hickam Officers’ Club, particularly at very late/early hours.

"It was 3 a.m. on a Wednesday when the machines suddenly ground to a halt at Hydro Aluminium in Hamburg. The rolling mill's highly sensitive monitor stopped production so abruptly that the aluminum belts snagged. They hit the machines and destroyed a piece of the mill. The reason: The voltage off the electricity grid weakened for just a millisecond."Angela Merkel´s failed energy transition policy - relying on wind and solar power - is beginning to seriously damage German industrial production: Sudden fluctuations in Germany's power grid are causing major damage to a number of industrial companies. While many of them have responded by getting their own power generators and regulators to help minimize the risks, they warn that companies might be forced to leave if the government doesn't deal with the issues fast.-

At other industrial companies, executives at the highest levels are also thinking about freeing themselves from Germany's electricity grid to cushion the consequences of the country's transition to renewable energy.

Likewise, as more and more companies with sensitive control systems are securing production through batteries and generators, the companies that manufacture them are benefiting. "You can hardly find a company that isn't worrying about its power supply," said Joachim Pfeiffer, a parliamentarian and economic policy spokesman for the governing center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU).

Behind this worry stands the transition to renewable energy laid out by Chancellor Angela Merkel last year in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Though the transition has been sluggish so far, Merkel set the ambitious goals of boosting renewable energy to 35 percent of total power consumption by 2020 and 80 percent by 2050 while phasing out all of Germany's nuclear power reactors by 2022.

The problem is that wind and solar farms just don't deliver the same amount of continuous electricity compared with nuclear and gas-fired power plants. To match traditional energy sources, grid operators must be able to exactly predict how strong the wind will blow or the sun will shine.

But such an exact prediction is difficult. Even when grid operators are off by just a few percentage points, voltage in the grid slackens. That has no affect on normal household appliances, such as vacuum cleaners and coffee machines. But for high-performance computers, for example, outages lasting even just a millisecond can quickly trigger system failures.

A survey of members of the Association of German Industrial Energy Companies (VIK) revealed that the number of short interruptions to the German electricity grid has grown by 29 percent in the past three years. Over the same time period, the number of service failures has grown 31 percent, and almost half of those failures have led to production stoppages. Damages have ranged between €10,000 and hundreds of thousands of euros, according to company information.

The situation is fast becoming so bad for the industry that even the economic policy spokesman for Merkel´s own party, CDU, is warning about dire consequences:

"In the long run, if we can't guarantee a stable grid, companies will leave (Germany)," says Pfeiffer, the CDU energy expert. "As a center of industry, we can't afford that."

The only solution to this growing problem is a rollback of the wind and solar power expansion, because grid operators will never be able to exactly predict how strong the wind will blow and the sun will shine!

Thursday, 16 August 2012

I've been a meteorologist and air quality scientist for the last 12 years, so I knew the science behind the issue, but I'll admit I was a global warming/climate change skeptic. As a scientist, I believe that skepticism is a good thing. It makes us look for more evidence, and more evidence leads to a better understanding of the world.

However, I didn't outright deny that climate change was happening. The facts were there that the average global temperature was on the rise. I just wasn't convinced that it was solely due to human activity.

It took a lot of research on my part, and a lot of sifting through bad science, misinformation, and biased reports to get there, but I'm no longer a skeptic.

The "research" that led Scott Sutherland to believe that climate change is "solely due to human activity" seems to be that he has read - and blindly believes in - Muller´sand Hansen´s widely debunked studies. Not a very convincing conversion, but maybe it will make it easier for Sutherland to join the warmist gravy train on the way to a better paid job.

The opposition against chanellor Angela Merkel´s policy of "more Europe" in order to save the euro is growing in Germany: Prominent euro-skeptic Frank Schäffler, who voted against a rescue package for Spanish banks in July, said that German taxpayer dollars shouldn't be put on the line to bail out governments of other European countries. "Things are moving closer and closer to a transfer union," he warned at the vote.

Bavaria's Finance Minister Markus Söder, a member of the Christian Social Union (CSU), the Bavarian sister party to Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and a crucial part of her governing coalition, said recently that Greece should leave the euro by the end of the year. Söder told the Sunday tabloid Bild am Sonntag that "each new aid measure, every easing of the demands, would be the wrong path."

Most prominent, however, have been the comments from Merkel's economy minister and vice chancellor Philipp Rösler, who said recently that a Greek exit from the common currency zone has "long since lost its horrors" for him. Rösler, as it happens, is also the current head of the FDP and was widely criticized for his comments.

Der Spiegel now tells us that Merkel´s foreign minister Guido Westerwelle - easily the worst foreign minister in Germany after WW II - is planning to save euro with the help of some of his predecessors:

With Europe's common currency in trouble and the entire EU weakened as a result, German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle is determined to do his part to keep the euro from disintegrating. Indeed, he is now reportedly organizing a joint appearance with several former German foreign ministers from a trio of different political parties.

With the slogan, "We are for Europe," Westerwelle, of the business-friendly Free Democratic Party (FDP), is planning an appearance with his predecessors Hans-Dietrich Genscher and Klaus Kinkel, also of the FDP, Joschka Fischer of the environmentalist Green Party and Frank-Walter Steinmeier of the opposition center-left Social Democrats (SPD).

It is fortunately highly unlikely that Westerwelle´s project will have any influence on the more and more critical attitudes of ordinary Germans. When the reality of the European Union´s - and

Germany´s - failed policies is fully exposed within the next few months, Germans will realize that Westerwelle´s and his predecessor´s campaign is just another piece of empty rhetorics.

The wind power industry both in Europe and the US boasts about how competitive it has become. At the same time the wind energy people are warning about massive job-losses if subsidies and tax credits are removed or reduced. Thomas Pyle examines this 125 year old "infant industry":

Congress has been supporting wind production since at least 1978 on the premise that wind is an infant industry that needs just a few more years of mother’s milk – i.e. taxpayer handouts -- to be cost-competitive with more affordable and reliable sources of energy.

But wind has to be one of the oldest infant industries on the planet. In 1882, Thomas Edison built the Pearl Street Station in New York City—a coal fired power plant. A mere 5 years later, a Scottish academic named James Blyth built a wind turbine to make electricity and run the lights on his cabin. After 125 years of generating electricity, you would think that wind would be ready to stand on its own without special favors from the federal government, but apparently it is not.

Wind proponents have been telling us since at least the early 1980s that wind is almost cost-competitive with coal and natural gas. The American Wind Energy Association asserts that wind is “cost-competitive with virtually all other new electricity generation sources.” If so, why are wind proponents still asking for help through the Production Tax Credit?

The reason is plain. The PTC is a large portion of the wholesale price of electricity, giving wind producers the incentive to produce electricity even when they have to pay the electrical grid to take the power they generate.

Specifically, the PTC is a credit of 2.2 cents per kilowatt-hour of electricity produced from wind (and other specified sources). The wholesale price of electricity is less than 3 cents per kilowatt-hour in some markets to about 4.5 cents per kilowatt hour. This makes the PTC worth 50 to 70 percent of the wholesale price of electricity.

The law as currently written provides the two things the wind proponents claim they want—certainty and a phase out of the tax credit. As the law stands, the tax credit ends at the end of the year. This is definitely a certain outcome and a phase out.

Wind has a long history and it continues to be expensive, inefficient, and unsustainable. It’s about time that Congress ends the Production Tax Credit once and for all.

Wednesday, 15 August 2012

Among people who are looking forward to the larger storms predicted by global warming alarmists, surfers stand out: “Every time a new climate study comes out its worse than the last,” Hechter says. “Climate change means more big storms. More storms, more surf, right? I guess that’s the most you can say for such a calamity: Maybe we’ll get some epic waves.”Not suprisingly, this positive approach is not to the liking of "experts". U.S. Geological Survey´sCurt Storlazzi says that there will be prolonged periods - "a month or more" - of very small waves between the "epic swells", all due to global warming!:

According to Curt Storlazzi, a surfer and a geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey who studies coastlines, it is true that climate change will likely cause ever-larger storms, and more epic swells. But that doesn’t take into account the varied effects of climate change. The periods between those swells will lengthen: surfers may get to enjoy a week of all-time surf, but that might be followed by a month or more of excruciating flatness. “Climate change makes extremes more extreme,” Storlazzi said. Over time, he added, because the waves between storms will get smaller even as the bigger waves get bigger, the average height of waves is likely to stay the same, and may even go down a bit.Another "expert" agrees:

“The frequency where you have the exact right combination of tide, wind, and swell to make a classic surf day are going to be fewer and further between,” said David Revell, a senior associate with the environmental hydrology firm Phillip Williams and Associates. Revell said climate change will eventually have a profound affect on surfing, citing Rincon and Pleasure Point in Santa Cruz, as two good examples of breaks that could eventually be significantly affected by sea level rise. On a long enough time frame, Revell said, some low tide spots, like Supertubes in Los Angeles County, could disappear completely.

Both Revell and Storlazzi emphasized that new breaks will be created as sea level rise reconfigures the world’s coastlines, and they noted that surf spots that break better at high tide may benefit from the changes. But they said that for the foreseeable future the overall effect of advancing seas is likely to be more destructive than constructive.

However, Jacob Hechter, 30, a surfer at Rincon in Santa Barbara, does not seem to be too worried about Storlazzi´s and Revell´s warnings (And I agree with him. The small waves "theory"- as well as the entire global warming alarmism - is basically nothing but junk science ): “Who knows where my kids and grandkids are going to be surfing,” Hechter, who is 30, says before he pushes off the last rock and paddles out. “But I’m looking forward to some all-time swells.”Read the entire article here

Tuesday, 14 August 2012

This is what happens when a mother, who has been brainwashed, tells her children about the forthcoming climate armageddon:

My 12-year old has just asked to participate in another weekly activity thirty minutes away. I try a quick rebuff: “You’re already too busy and it’s too expensive.”With more than a bit of adolescent attitude, she replies, “You just don’t want to take the time to drive me.”I look at the clock. It’s past 7 p.m. We haven’t eaten dinner, and unfinished homework clutters the kitchen table. There is never a perfect moment to get into the real nitty gritty of why and wherefore. Still, sometimes you have to take the time to give your kids an honest answer to their questions.“Yes, you’re partly right,” I tell her, and her sister too, who has now wandered in. “I don’t especially want to spend more time carting you around. But there is another reason. Every time we get in the car we contribute to climate change. By the end of this century – and you may both still be around – climate change is likely to make conditions for life on earth drastically different from what they are today.”

I plunge ahead. I tell them that they have just lived through the hottest decade ever recorded. I tell them that recent flooding submerged one fifth of the land surface of Pakistan, washing away 7,000 schools.I tell them that the Arctic is melting, that hurricanes are getting stronger, droughts are lengthening, and rainfall records are being shattered. Within their lifetimes, sea level could rise by 6 feet, or more, submerging the world’s coastal cities.The children are quiet. Finally they ask if our house, a few miles inland from the Maine coast, will be okay. This question, in its innocent disregard either for the welfare of others, or for the fact that if the world disintegrates around them it won’t matter if their house is okay, seems to reflect a child’s perspective.But it’s how us adults think too: Sure, catastrophic drought struck Texas last year and the Midwest this summer. But here in the Northeast global warming so far has mostly meant warmer winters. In other words, our house and family are fine.Well then, my children ask, shouldn’t we do something about it?I tell them they are already helping by riding their bikes and walking around town, by delighting in hand-me-downs rather than shopping trips, by eating local spinach rather than asking for processed foods from afar.Although this cheers them up a bit, they are smart enough to know that a few leaves of spinach are not going to fix a whole lot. By the end of the conversation, they’re in tears.Read the entire column here

PS

There are probably thousands of similar families, with children in tears after listening to their alarmist parents´ global warming scaremongering. Enviro-fundamentalists obviously do not care very much about the lasting damage their alarmist propaganda causes to young, easily manipulated children, who do not yet have the ability to critically judge the quality of the information they are force-fed with. Very sad.

Monday, 13 August 2012

Finally leading western media are awakening to the fact that Vladimir Putin is a dictator. The headline of German Der Spiegel´s article says it all:

The Path to TyrannyPutin's Russia Is Becoming a Flawless Dictatorship

Vladimir Putin is rapidly transforming Russia into a repressive state reminiscent of the Soviet Union, and the Pussy Riot trial is the climax in his campaign against the opposition. However, following massive media attention, his crackdown on the punk band could backfire.

Putin's speech to the German parliament, the Bundestag, on Sept. 25, 2001, fueled expectations that the former KGB officer, who spoke German fluently, would modernize Russia and champion European values. Such illusions culminated in a now-famous comment by then Chancellor Gerhard Schröder who, in November 2004, described his Moscow friend as a "flawless democrat."

Putin has since disappointed his German friends, whose expectations were in any case too high. They had refused to believe that Russia still viewed itself as an independent power between Europe and Asia, that 500 years of authoritarian rule under the czars and the communists, could not be shed overnight, and the reservations against the West would not simply disappear because Russians like to drink Coca-Cola and carry designer bags by Yves Saint Laurent.

--

But after his four years as prime minister and his return to the Kremlin in early May, Putin abandoned his conciliatory approach. Demands for more democracy and development of Russia's weak civil society were suddenly viewed as subversive.

He quickly had his party, United Russia, which had increasingly taken on the structures and rituals of the former Communist Party of the Soviet Union in the more than 10 years of its existence, drastically tighten laws against demonstrations. Leading members of the opposition were attacked with smear campaigns.In only three months Putin, with the help of his absolute majority in the Duma, repealed the few reforms that his predecessor Dmitry Medvedev, with whom he had switched places, had managed to carry out. -

Vladimir Pastukhov, a political scientist and attorney, points to what he views as the "return of political terror as an instrument of the government." Naturally, he adds, Putin is not another Stalin, and yet the president has created a new form of equality, not before the law but before his despotism. "Everyone understands that the law no longer protects people," he says. "All business owners know that their companies can be taken away from them at any second, as can freedom and perhaps even their lives."

Pastukhov left the country in 2008. At the time, he represented British investor William Browder in a conflict with senior officials at the Interior Ministry and the Russian tax authority, who had apparently appropriated a few of his client's companies. In the eyes of Putin's supporters, this made Pastukhov a champion of Western interest who was being paid by foreigners. He now teaches at the University of Oxford.

-

The president is unfazed by the West's criticism of the treatment of Pussy Riot. With his policy of uncompromising toughness, Putin wants to demonstrate that Russia has once again acquired the status in the world that it had during the Cold War, when the Soviet Union battled for supremacy with the United States.But Putin's approach could prove to be a mistake, one that threatens rather than reinforces his power. Many Russians -- especially in Moscow, where Putin no longer has the support of the majority -- are demanding a greater say in politics. Only one in three Russians now feels that the country is a democracy.PS Der Spiegel says that Putin has since (2004) disappointed his German friends. That is probably true about most of his so called German friends, but his main supporter - and beneficiary - in Germany, former socialist chancellor Gerhard Schröder to this day has not retracted his statement about Putin as a "flawless democrat". On the contrary, last year Schröder restated his support of the dictator:"I have not changed my characterisation of the Russian President, and I will not take my words back" ( Schröder, May 7, 2011)

Meet Paul Ryan--it snowed in my district, so let's not do anything about climate changehttp://t.co/iCkKIKU3"In short, Paul Ryan stands with Big Oil against scientific fact and the future of human civilization". Brad Johnson, campaign manager for Forecast the FactsIn fact,Brad Johnson´s description of "the virulent denier" Ryan´s voting record on climate change/global warming is a most welcome reminder of Ryan´s sensible and wise views:

Ryan has voted to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from limiting greenhouse pollution, to eliminate White House climate advisers, to block the U.S. Department of Agriculture from preparing for climate disasters like the drought devastating his home state, and to eliminate the Department of Energy Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA-E):

Paul Ryan Promoted Unfounded Conspiracy Theories About Climate Scientists.In a December 2009 op-ed during international climate talks, Ryan made reference to the hacked University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit emails. He accused climatologists of a “perversion of the scientific method, where data were manipulated to support a predetermined conclusion,” in order to “intentionally mislead the public on the issue of climate change.” Because of spurious claims of conspiracy like these, several governmental and academic inquiries were launched, all of which found the accusations to be without merit. [Paul Ryan, 12/11/09] (The inquiries were a whitewash, NNoN)

Paul Ryan Argued Snow Invalidates Global Warming Policy. In the same anti-science, anti-scientist December 2009 op-ed, Ryan argued, “Unilateral economic restraint in the name of fighting global warming has been a tough sell in our communities, where much of the state is buried under snow.” Ryan’s line is especially disingenuous because he hasn’t been trying to sell climate action, he’s been spreading disinformation. [Paul Ryan, 12/11/09] (Johnson and McKibben clearly misrepresent what Ryan wrote in his op-ed, which is a very sensible and realistic in its general tone - strongly recommended reading!, NNoN)

Paul Ryan Voted To Block The USDA From Preparing For Climate Change. In 2011, Ryan voted in favor of the Scalise (R-LA) Amendment to the FY12 Agriculture Appropriations bill, to bar the U.S. Department of Agriculture from implementing its Climate Protection Plan. [Roll Call 448, 6/16/11]

Paul Ryan Voted To Eliminate White House Climate Advisers. Ryan voted in favor of Scalise (R-LA) Amendment 204 to the 2011 Continuing Resolution, to eliminate the assistant to the president for energy and climate change, the special envoy for climate change (Todd Stern), and the special adviser for green jobs, enterprise and innovation. [Roll Call 87, 2/17/11]

Sunday, 12 August 2012

Wind power is inefficient and an enormous waste of money everywhere. Christopher Booker explains the sad reality of the Cameron government´s wind energy policy:

Anyone impressed by the efficient way in which Britain has organised the Olympic Games might consider the stark contrast provided by the shambles of our national energy policy – wholly focused as it is on the belief that we can somehow keep our lights on by building tens of thousands more wind turbines within eight years. At one point last week, Britain’s 3,500 turbines were contributing 12 megawatts (MW) to the 38,000MW of electricity we were using. (The Neta website, which carries official electricity statistics, registered this as “0.0 per cent”).

It is 10 years since I first pointed out here how crazy it is to centre our energy policy on wind. It was pure wishful thinking then and is even more obviously so now, when the Government in its latest energy statement talks of providing, on average, 12,300MW of power from “renewables” by 2020.

Everything about this is delusional. There is no way we could hope to build more than a fraction of the 30,000 turbines required. As the windless days last week showed, we would have to build dozens of gas-fired power stations just to provide back-up for all the times when the wind is not blowing at the right speed. But, as more and more informed observers have been pointing out, the ministers and officials of the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) seem to live in a bubble of unreality, without any practical grasp of how electricity is made, impervious to rational argument and driven by an obsession that can only end in our computer-dependent economy grinding to a halt.